Captain Beefheart's Harry Irene: Listen To First Ever Version
MOJO has an exclusive preview of Don Van Vliet’s parlour-jazz bauble, from the new Sun Zoom Spark box set.
A HOST OF PREVIOUSLY unavailable Captain Beefheart rarities are being released in a new box set and MOJO has an exclusive preview of one of those songs.
Out on Monday (November 17), Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 To 1972 has 14 previously-unreleased tracks, including this winsome parlour-jazz embryo of Harry Irene, eventually destined, albeit much altered, to debut on 1978’s Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) album.
It’s the first version of the song ever recorded, featuring just Beefheart aka Don Van Vliet singing and Elliot Ingber on guitar.
Also on the disc of outtakes, which features different mixes, rehearsal recordings and alternate takes from the vaults, is a sung version of I Can’t Do This Unless I Can Do This/Seam Crooked Sam, which eventually became a spoken-word track, plus an instrumental of The Witch Doctor Life that's radically different from the version included on 1982's Ice Cream For Crow album.
The four-disc Sun Zoom Spark set also brings together newly remastered versions of the three albums Van Vliet recorded with The Magic Band in the early ’70s, namely 1970’s Lick My Decals Off, Baby, The Spotlight Kid from January 1972 and Clear Spot which was released in November of the same year.
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